Meriting our Salvation

At the core of every project of self-salvation is the staunch unwillingness to believe that God’s love and forgiveness can be unmerited. Those who would try and save themselves prefer work to rest, effort to gift. Instead of receiving the free gift of grace, they wear themselves out trying to earn what has been given in Christ.

They will insist upon working for the goodness they receive from God. It produces the sweat equity of works-righteousness: wages of death (see…